Jan. 1, 1SGS.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



calling names is usually looked upon as a sign of a 

 weak case. 



The next assertion was that "the more intense 

 the colour, the more degraded the mind, the more 

 stunted and distorted the body become." It is not 

 very easy to make out here which are really the 

 nominatives to the verb ; but it was assumed that 

 the three last were to be considered such. Now, 

 the Negro may be considered as a specimen of 

 advanced blackness. Yet, beyond all question, there 

 have been negroes of high powers of mind and 

 great attainments, — two totally different things, it 

 must be remembered. Toussaint l'Ouverture, 

 Ereidig, Aldrich, Lislet, &c., were all men who had 

 fought their way to distiuction. Whole nations of 

 paler-coloured people might be mentioned who have 

 not produced a man of this stamp. The Negro, too, 

 is undoubtedly powerful. Men like Lillywhite and 

 Biasson, who could cope with the strongest English 

 prize-fighters, would have made short work with the 

 finest specimens of the very races who ought, on 

 this theory, to surpass them. Lastly, unless we 

 have been told a number of gross falsehoods, the 

 Negro is often very long-lived. These arguments are 

 not answered ; a more convenient plan is adopted ; 

 they are called "a display of negrophilism." But 

 if they were, this would not affect their validity. 

 Three distinct results are said to accompany intensity 

 of colour ; it is shown that they do not, and this is 

 negrophilism. 



Lastly, "E. A. A." finds that I have made a great 

 mistake about the Gipsies ; and as this involves a 

 most important point, I will endeavour to give as 

 brief and clear an account of the matter as I possibly 

 can. 1 laid it down as a principle, that as all these 

 different races sprang from one common pair of 

 parents, then, if climate were the cause of such 

 diversity of colour, and operated so quickly as 

 "E. A. A." proves it to do, we ought to find all 

 races who have lived long in the same climate of the 

 same colour. But there are instances enough to the 

 contrary, and several of these were mentioned ; 

 among others the fact of the Gipsies, English and 

 Welsh, living here from time immemorial without 

 having become assimilated to each other. 



1 beg to call the reader's particular attention to 

 the reply, as it is a fair specimen of the style of 

 reasoning employed. "E. A. A." says Mr. Milton 

 is particularly unfortunate in this venture, because 

 it happens that the Gipsies did not enter England 

 before the year 1427. However incredible it may 

 seem, he offers no other ground for assuming that 

 he has overthrown all the fatal objections to his 

 theory ; all the other facts stated are passed over. 

 Now, though, for reasons stated in the " Stream of 

 Life," I do not concur in the opinion of some 

 writers as to the advent of the Gipsies ; although 

 the story of their having migrated into Europe in 

 the days of Timour is several degrees more im- 



probable than most of the incidents in Homer and 

 Virgil, yet I will not avail myself of this plea ; 1 

 will let it stand as an error, and go upon other 

 ground. There is then, on " E. A. A.'s " own show- 

 ing, still ample time for the assimilation to have 

 taken place ; and it has not taken place. Again, in 

 this very paragraph, "E. A. A." was asked to 

 account for the fact of two black races being found 

 on the west coast of Africa, and immediately 

 between them a moderately dark-yellow race. His 

 reply is that the desert of Sahara was once the bed 

 of an inland sea, which completely severed Africa 

 from the rest of the old world (!), and that light- 

 coloured races have got into Africa. But a glance 

 at a good map will show that a sea, which was only 

 the size of the desert of Sahara, could not have 

 severed it from the rest of the old world, and we 

 want to know why there are light-coloured races 

 behoeen two black ones. 



"E. A A." frames a "supposition" that the red 

 Eoulahs have been " swallowed up in " the black 

 Eoulahs, and then says the supposition is " collateral 

 evidence." He finds, on his own showing, that the 

 Negro ought to turn pale in America ; and as this 

 change does not ensue, he says it is because the 

 Negro is the descendant of a race of criminals ! 

 and, according to the theory of natural selection, 

 ought to be the most degraded of his type, which 

 he is not. He was reminded that fair races, and 

 even Albinoes, are found in very hot climates, while 

 the Kamtschatkans and Aleutians have skins as 

 swarthy, and hair as dark, as the natives of many 

 low latitudes. He tells us that Sir John Richardson 

 thought the Esquimaux tohile, and that we are 

 "quite at liberty to attribute the dark colour of 

 the Esquimaux to their southern origin." Of course 

 we are ; always supposing Sir John Bichardson was 

 wrong. Indeed, we are quite at liberty to say and 

 do a great many things which still no person with 

 a grain of common sense thinks of saying or doing, 

 and therefore, with full liberty to do so, we don't 

 attribute their dark colour to such a cause, when 

 we know that the Scandinavians, who must on this 

 theory have come from the south also, are very much 

 lighter in hue. But supposing Sir John was right, 

 then we cannot attribute their dark hue to a southern 

 origiu, for we cannot attribute what doss not exist. 



"E. A. A.," who has divided men into black and 

 white,' speaks of the red race, among whom he 

 includes the Etruscans (!) Trojans (!) and Egyptians. 

 Then he says that the Chinese came from Noah, and 

 that he has not made up his mind as to whether the 

 original race was white or yelloto. He informs us 

 that a great architectural work (possibly the Tower 

 of Babel) was begun immediately after the Flood, 

 and that the common origin of the New Zealanders 

 and Hindoos is proved by their drinking in the same 

 way. He says his theory is the only one which will 

 account for the presence of brown adults among 



